Tag: bodies

What does a book mean in Cuba? A cell phone in Iran? What do the millions of miles of fibreoptic cable wound round the earth mean to you, to me? How are those meanings changing? How are our changing tools changing our world? Changing us? These questions concern artists in every corner of the world,... Continue Reading →

It occurs to me that if the result of climate change was 'global freezing' rather than 'global warming' we'd be paying a LOT more attention to it. If instead of recent years being the hottest on record they were the coldest, people would be sitting up and taking notice. People don't like the cold. A... Continue Reading →

A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the Toronto Reference Library as part of an excellent series called Treehouse Talks. It was a lovely event, attended by about 100 people and held in the spectacular 5-story atrium of the library. I gave an updated version of the talk that I call Know Your... Continue Reading →

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours at the National Gallery of Canada, where I have often been before. As I strode up Safdie's long cerebral ramp (a place not to dream but to trip and crack your skull, splashes of sacrificial red blood worth the pain perhaps to bring this mausoleum to life) I... Continue Reading →

A few months ago I did a music and poetry gig at Casa el Popolo in Montreal, a club I have previously written about in another post, as part of Ian Ferrier's Words and Music series. Fortunately Zoe Toupin happened to be there videotaping, and as a result I have now got a few new... Continue Reading →

A couple days ago I posted a recording called Where The Bears Go by my duo The John Waynes (so named because it consists of John Sobol (me) and Wayne Kelso). Today I posted a second recording by The John Waynes called The Evil I. For those keeping score, Where The Bears Go is a... Continue Reading →

Jazz was - among other things - a century-long political conversation between Black Americans and White Americans. It was a musical, intellectual and spiritual conversation within a highly politicized social context whose axes were language, race and power. Jazz was also a conversation about technology, and about techno-cultures. To be specific, in jazz the conflict... Continue Reading →